Last night, Kelly and I ventured to the land of milk and honey (or, rather, Akron, Ohio) to see Trouble Books play at the Akron Art Museum. I had always (well, ever since I heard their album The United Colors of Trouble Books, which I reccomend you all order) wanted to catch them live, but I always find out about their shows too late to change my plans, so I was excited to find out about this free show a week in advance!

The Akron Art Museum is a cool venue; the bands play in the lobby, which has that modern concrete-steel-and-glass thing going for it. However, the accoustics in the place are odd; Kelly and I couldn’t hear very well, so we moved about 4 steps to our left and found a spot where the sound was good.

These accoustics were especially bad for a band like trouble books; with no drummer, and with the ambient sound that they are known for, everything kind of blended together if you were standing in the wrong place. Still, it was a nice, intimate venue, and it was awesome to see them perform “Strelka,” “Transient Color Glories,” and “Personal Tornadoes,” among others.

My only complaint (besides the strange accoustics) was that I would have liked to see more of them. Trouble Books set seemed a little short, which I’m guessing was due to the other event that was being held at the Museum causing this show to start late.

The aforementioned accoustics were far friendlier to Kent band Beaten Awake, a band that I hadn’t heard of before this show, but that I’ll be friending on the MySpaces. They rocked out.

Anyway, after the show, I got to talk to newlyweds Linda and Keith Freund, who form the core of Trouble Books, and with Gabe Schray, also of Trouble Books, whose solo electronic stuff is worth a listen. The three of them were awesome; the autographed my copy of the CDr that came with their album, and they remembered the review of their album I wrote last year!

The zombie apocalypse has happened. The streets are deserted, and four friends and I are sneaking through the suburbs at night. We are looking for a vertual reality set-up for five. We find one, but it is on the bottom floor of an apartment complex, and it looks like five toilets sitting side to side, with helmets. I question the prudence of shutting off our senses while on the biottom floor of an apartment complex, as we would be sitting ducks for a zombie attack.

My girlfriend is about 5 years younger than I am, and she belongs in a different generation than I do. I’m on the ass-end of Generation X, while she is part of Gereration Y (Or the “Millennials”). Because of this, we often have different cultural references or experiences that do not make sense to each other. For instance, I couldn’t imagine getting off of school in 10th grade and going straight to Starbucks. I don’t think we even had a starbucks around these parts.

Anyway, I occasionally mention things that were a part of my youth that she has never heard of. To remedy this, I present to you (and to her) jaynova’s Gen X Encyclopedia.

Here’s an entry for you:

Technotronic-A dance/hip-hop group from the late ’80s and early ’90s. The lead vocals on their biggest US hits were provided by the androgynous Ya Kid K. Under the name Hi Kek 3, they appeared on the soundtrack to one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies. Their songs were usually about pumping things up and moving bodies.

Kelly and I go to a bar in Cleveland to watch some local bands. When I get there, I want to change out of my work clothes, so I go into a room with wood floors and brick walls to change. After I get out of my work clothes, I get extremely tired, and my limbs feel heavy. So heavy, in fact, that I can not put my other set of clothes on. Someone walks in, and I cover myself and tell them that this room is in use. Through the walls, I hear that one of the bands is not local at all, but is Murder By Death. I try to get my clothes on faster to see them, but I stumble around in a stupor. I almost colapse in fatigue, but I manage to pull myself together and get dressed before the 3rd song.

I realize that Jayson Shenk should know about this, so I try to call him, but I realize that my phone is broken. The screen has a “broken picture tube” effect: the picture on it does not fill the screen, it wobbles, and it makes a buzzing sound. I’m pissed because Jayson would have loved to see MbD.

Fast forward to the end of the show, and I run into Adam, the lead singer, who recognizes me from the show at the Grog Shop that I saw a few months ago. Before we can talk, I wake up.